the poems don't come.
then one writes ten in one day.
and one gets in his car
and drives up and down the
boulevards and
wonders what the other people are
doing
what the other people want.
aren't they waiting on poems?
they drive their cars very angrily.
perhaps their poems haven't come.
I go into the supermarket
and the people's faces are very grey.
they poke at bread and seem
quite listless.
surely their poems haven't come.
they must be waiting.
they must get tired of waiting.
I get out of there and drive back to my
place.
going up I pass a man on the stairway.
his body and his face tell me that his poems
haven't come.
I am startled by his ugly rays.
I wish I could give him one of my poems.
even a bad poem.
even a dirty poem.
in my place I drink a glass of water.
then I go down the stairway to the mailbox.
my poems. my poems have come back
to me.
I take them back to my place.
they are very good poems,
that's why they didn't take them away from
me.
that's why they sent them back.
I should put them under that man's door
the man I saw on the stairway.
they would probably make him very
happy. then I decide not to. I
decide to give my poems to
you. now when you go to the supermarket
your face won't be grey.
and you won't stand around
poking at bread like an
asshole.
I'll write some more poems for
the man I saw on the
stairway.

© Frank Silvanski